Stoned
by immortal7
Summary: Jubilee and Paige talk about life and death.


-1Disclaimer: Don't own X-men, or have permission to make up tales of them and get paid.

Stoned

The view opened up as the sunset in to the background. In her hand lay an unopened bag of rolling papers. To her side sat a portable CD stereo with on one disc in sight. The moon was beginning to shine and bring back light if only a little to the darkened world. The young woman just lay on her back and started at the star filled night with verily little pronunciation of her breathing. She had a cigarette in her hand and it was slowly burning down to the filter. The music she had set out to be played lay forgotten as she let her self drift in her mind hoping to fell even a little better over the course of the night. Yet her she lay in remembrance of all those she had know and all those she had wished to have gotten to know better.

Her silence was broken by the sound a voice that had filled her ears over the last two and a half years. "Jubilee are you up there? The whole mansion is looking for you." Paige noticed the slight smoke trail drifting off into the grounds. So she just got up on to the balcony and jumped up to grab hold of the roof. She quickly pulled her self up and looked around in the darkness for a sign of her friend. "Jubilee is that you?"

"Go away hayseed I'm not in the mood for company right now." Paige just let the comment slide and sat down next to the laying figure. "I take it coming to the mansion has completely destroyed what hearing you had Paige. I want to be left alone." Paige glanced over at her friend and lay down with her.

"You want to tell me why none of the telepaths in the whole school can find you. They all say it's like you just turned your mind off. It kind of worried me for a bit because that usually means the person died. Than Emma told me you were just sulking."

"Well Emma can go fuck herself for all I care right know. " The vocalization threw Paige off for a minute. "Now can you please leave me alone I have some thoughts that require my undivided attention?"

"Like I'm going to let you sit up here and take over for Jono in the I depressed so everyone can die department."

"Paige Jono has nothing on me this night so just leave. I can take care of myself. I pretty sure I can fend off any imaginary enemy I throw and my self and shock shock I can even flush the toilet to. See I'm a big girl now."

"I know you can take are off yourself. I mean I only tease you about your powers."

"No you don't Paige. You and almost everyone in this place think my powers suck. And amazingly that's what I want you to think."

"Why?"

"So you don't depend on me."

"Come on your not that powerful Lee."

"Okay believe what you want."

Jubilee reached down and opened the bag she had been holding. Grabbed a paper and reached into the cargo pocket on her left leg and pulled out small bag. Paige couldn't see the contents, but had a good guess as to what they were. "Since when do you get high Jubilee?" The question lingered as Jubilee continued her actions.

"Since long before you even thought about being an X-man." Jubilee than brought to the rolled paper to her mouth and brought out a lighter. The flame crackled for a second in front of her face than she let the flame died and threw the lighter of the roof.

"Thank God. I thought for a second you were going to light that in front of me." Jubilee gave her a look and her finger to the paper until it started smoking. After a few inhales she handed the joint to Paige. "No thanks I don't smoke Lee." Jubilee shrugged her shoulder and took another puff. "Mind telling me why you are up here behaving so recklessly?"

"Not really, but if that is what its going to take to get you to leave me alone I'll share a little. Are you sure you don't want some it will make the story that much more pleasant." Paige declined by shaking her head. "Any way I have a question for you have you ever just sat there and thought about death?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Lucky you." Jubilee took another puff. "I think about it a lot some days and never on others. "

"And that's your excuse for sitting up here on the roof getting high."

"Who said I needed an excuse I just wanted to get high. I haven't been able to since I came back to the mansion."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I told you I'm thinking about death."

"And getting bombed out of your mind with that. I never thought of you as the hippie religious type."

"I'm not its just. It doesn't hurt this way."

Paige looked at Jubilee internally asking her self what was going on. Jubilee never got depressed. She got angry, but usually she was always cheerful. This Jubilee had a look of despair on her face and a black hole in her eyes detaching everything that the metamorphic had ever attached to the younger girl. "I'm going to tell you a story Paige."

"Not another when I was an x-man story. If you haven't noticed we both are X-men now."

Jubilee just ignored her rant and started talking. "I was ten and a half years old when I died." Paige shut up immediately. "I had been critically injured about seven months before that. My parents had been run off the road and killed. I was left alone in an orphanage to shake of thoughts of suicide and depression in a place that gave nothing to me. I was left to worry about myself and take care of myself since nobody there cared about me. After five months of pain and torment I ran away and ended up in a South Beverly Hills Mall. It was the same mall my mother use to take me shopping in. I lived for about two months in the mall. I stole food and clothes as I needed them."

Jubilee got up and swung off the roof. Paige even startled followed her friend. "Are you going to finish the story Jubilee?" Jubilee just waved her hand and wandered towards the elevator. "Wait up I don't think you should be alone right now."

"I'm fine Paige. In fact I don't even have a buzz yet. I'm just going to blow some stem and get some rest. You don't have to follow me." Paige didn't listen to her any way. They rode in the elevator to the lower levels. Jubilee walk towards the Danger Room and wandered to the control panel. Paige watched in amazement as she pulled out the panel and started tampering with the internal sensors. With in a minute the danger room's door opened up. Jubilee walked into the training area letting the door close and lock behind her.

Figuring that the only way to keep an eye on her friend was to monitor her actions in the control room Paige ran to the door to let her in. She reached the glass only to see Jubilee having a talk with several people. Paige recognized a few of them. There was Rachel Summers, Jean Grey, Betsy Braddock, Everett Thomas, Angelo Espinosa, and the room continued to fill. The one she seemed to be talking to the most was a little blonde haired girl. Paige watch as Jubilee let the world pass for about twenty minutes before throwing the newly lit cigarette on to the floor and standing up. "Computer activate training program Cyclops Gamma 657 disengage safety protocols." Paige jumped up to the console trying to get the safety protocols back up before her friend did something stupid.

Than the room shifted to the New Mexico desert. And a swarm of hundreds of omega sentinels all heading towards her. Than the room filled with the multiple color pattern of Jubilee's mutant ability. Paige only watched in horror as she witnessed what she thought was her friend attempt at suicide. The program she was running was a desperation training mod used to put cocker teams in there place proving they were not invincible. Paige finally reached down to the com unit and called Cyclops to get her into the danger room together friend out. "Cyclops I need you down at the danger." The rest of her words stopped as the whole room rocked knocking her self into a chair.

When she came to the first thing she saw was the shadow of the X-men's current leader standing over her. "Paige are you okay." The voice didn't seem to be Scott's, but rather Warren. Looking around she saw her boyfriend just behind her holding up her head in his lap. She nodded and smiled at him.

Than it hit her. "Where is Jubilee? Is she alright?"

"She's fine. In fact I want to ask you what is going on. The whole mansion shook and all I got is Jubilee locked in the Danger Room in the desert surrounded by debris and a half message from you saying to come here."

The look she gave Scott must have thrown him off. You mean she's still in there you have to get to her. The program she was running is a team program and the protocols were off. She might be hurt." She tried to get up, but Warren held her down.

"She's fine. In fact she's just sitting there. What program did she run?"

"Your omega sentinel program." To her surprise Scott only shook his head and chuckled. "What's funny?"

"She finally blew huh. I've been waiting for this. Granted I had hoped the danger room would not need repairs after it, but with her powers I doubted it." He looked down at her. "After Warren has checked you out you can go back and talk with her. She seems to have opened up with you even if only a little."

It took fifteen minutes to get Warren to allow her to go see Jubilee. And that was only after a promise to spend the night in the med lab for tests. The desert was still being projected by the holocams when she sat next to Jubilee. "So been holding back on us for a while Lee?"

"Not this fine of control, but yeah I held back for a while."

"You want to tell me what is going on now?"

"I already told you its all about death."

"Looked like showing off to me, but if you say so."

"Paige, becoming a mutant was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I was twelve when my powers first emerged. It was like a rebirth. Al of a sudden I could defend myself. I could get paid for making a pretty light show. I didn't have to do what I had been doing for almost two years. My worst trouble after that was mall security. So I think about death and wonder why only a few of us get to live again and the others just stay dead. I feel guilty and than ashamed because it's them instead of me. And I wonder if I'm worth it." Finally Jubilee just broke down and started crying into Paige's arms. Paige looked around as the display flickered and the cameras shut off showing the extensive damage in the room. They would fix it later and deal with all the problems as they came in the mourning. Right know she had a friend crying in her arms and death of her friends on her mind. _Maybe one day everyone can come back and have a rebirth. Everyone else does. What happened to her that made her feel dead._ That was all Paige could think as the girl in her arms slowly quieted and passed out from exhaustion. This left nothing but traces of the dead and the living in her head to play out the rest of the night.

A/N this is not my first X-man story ever written, but the first I ever posted. Not sure about my feeling on it. Glad to hear your thoughts on it how ever. Jubilee is one my favorite X-Men and I'm not sure I did her justice here. Any way hope you enjoyed it. Review, flame, or just move along your choice. Glad to hear criticism it helps more than hinder. Later everyone


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